Mother back to school

From August this year, I am backing to school. It was almost 12 years ago when I left my final education on MBA, this time backing school really made me to feel special and different,

The whole thing started with my career as “Full Time Mother”. It was a simple faith and belief, of which the first duty of a mother should be looking after her children made me to do so. It went on quite peacefully and I was rather isolated from outside world though. My main concerns were all related to my children’s need and household need, for in the beginning of my motherhood, we didn’t have a maid. Later on I embarked homeschooling journey. I was as busy as one can be. The only “socialization” I had was one a fortnight mother’s support meeting. A group of young mothers from our church decided to meet up to encourage one another, more important to learn from each other. We were all new mothers and we did need peer support. There were times we were so tired, so bored, so hopeless, yet, when we got together, a simple sharing of one's experience would cheer us up.

Now looking back, I almost feel proud of myself for I had been in this job for almost ten years. My youngest one just turned three, the children have a great company among themselves, they play, they fight, just never be bored. I finally feel that I can lay back and relax a bit and, maybe, “I can join some exercise groups” I was just telling my husband one day.

However, the incident happened sometime last year dashed my relaxing dream: Both my parents were just retired then, for all my siblings are overseas, I wanted them to come to Singapore. So I applied PR for them. The first time, the application was just rejected without any explanation. I didn’t give too much thought, but re-applied six months later. This time, the application was rejected again with a simple reason that I, a full time mother, am not gainfully employed. I was indignant and wrote to the Immigration for appeal and to show that I was and am gainfully employed. The appeal however was rejected again.

I wrote a letter to the local newspaper forum, strangely but happily, after my letter appeared, the Immigration decided to reconsider my parents' case. Very soon their PR statues were granted.

Since then, the question whether a full time mother is gainfully employed has been widely discussed in the media. At the same time, Singapore government is also concerning the ageing population and lower birth rate. It arouses me the intellectual interests to really find out the answer and redefine a mother's role in society. So that is why I come back to study Sociology on women issue, aim to gain empirical knowledge on a full time mother’s value in comparing with working mother, whether she is really gainfully employed how much she values.